Image: World Industries

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Some say you have to sell your soul to go into advertising, but the Christian Coalition says one skateboard manufacturer has gone too far. The conservative group discovered in January that World Industries had included in its skateboard packaging a comic strip featuring a character called Devil Man and a contract asking the buyer to sign away his soul for all eternity.

The group promptly launched a campaign to halt the promotion, sending about 700 letters to the El Segundo, Calif.-based company. “At best, it’s offensive,” said executive director Ralph Reed in a press release. “At worst, it is harmful to children and undermines the authority of parents.”

World Industries CEO Frank Messmann doesn’t understand the fuss; he considers the ad low on the list of things that “ruin our youth.” Besides, he says, “If you’re really a believer, you know you can’t sell your soul to anyone — certainly not through a mail-order catalog.” Nearly 1,000 kids sent in contracts (out of 10,000 skateboards sold) and in return received a T-shirt reading: “I sold my soul and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”

While the Christian Coalition takes credit for ending the promotion, World Industries says the contracts were a one-time marketing campaign, and, despite the fact that a few of the offending packages may still be in stores, the company stopped distribution back in October. But Messmann admits he learned a lesson. “If anything, it made me consider from purely a business standpoint not to really play the religion card,” he says.

Still, parents beware: Messmann says that while he has no plans to use the contract again, the company will continue to use the objectionable characters in its marketing. The company’s other cartoon characters include Pin Cushion (Devil Man transformed by straight pins stuck in his face), who shoots a baby in the head, and Flameboy, who sets himself ablaze with gasoline.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate